[DISCUSSION] [SPOILERS] - Wish - Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine, Alan Tudyk - Dir. by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn

TheImpressiveX, 1 year ago

I saw it this afternoon. I thought it was enjoyable, but for a film meant to celebrate Disney’s 100th anniversary, I was expecting more.

They were supposed to play the “Once Upon a Studio” short in front of Wish, but for whatever reason there was no short.

Chris Pine was excellent as King Magnifico, I was disappointed that he didn’t get much screentime. I was frustrated that Valentino (the goat) didn’t have much to do in the film, and you could remove him from the plot and it would make very little difference. Asha seemed like a nice, funny, dorky kid, but the plot made her seem selfish, and made Magnifico seem completely justified in his decision.

I thought the animation looked…okay. It’s cel-shaded CGI, but it feels like it doesn’t really commit to the style. It mostly feels like any recent Disney animated film but with an added filter. I heard rumors that the film would also be animated in 2D, but that seemed to be reserved for the special effects such as Magnifico’s green magic (or whatever it was called).

I enjoyed the musical numbers, especially “Welcome to Rosas”, “This is The Thanks I Get?!”, and “Knowing What I Know Now”. However, some songs like “This Wish” and “You’re a Star” feel like the songwriters were cramming in too many words (for example “So I make this wish/to have something more for us than this” could have been shortened to “to have something more than this”).

I also heard rumors that every Disney animated character would appear, but unfortunately that’s not the case. There are a few references to other films here and there (and Peter Pan himself has a cameo at the end). I expected the end credits to go all-out on the crossover element (because early screening reactions on social media said to sit through the credits) but it was just a series of constellations in the shape of Disney characters (they even referenced Home on the Range, Chicken Little and Strange World, considered to be some of Disney’s worst animated films!) The whole movie just felt like a wasted opportunity.

In conclusion: if you want to watch a movie with stylized 3D animation about a wishing star, go see Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.